DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF CIRCULAR PATCH MICROSTRIP ANTENNA USING HFSS SOFTWARE

Abstract

Communication plays an important role now days and the communication systems are rapidly switching from “wired to wireless”. Wireless communication has developed rapidly in the past decades and it has a dramatic impact on human life. The wireless freedom experienced by consumer electronics, personal computer, handheld devices, and cell phone users are moving into the digital home and office. People want greater freedom and convenience in connecting all types of devices. The answer is Wide band (WB) Technology. This technology will provide the high bandwidth required by the latest and future portable home and office devices for multiple digital video and audio streams. The future development of the personal communication devices will aim to provide image, speech and data communications at any time, and anywhere around the world. This indicates that the future communication terminal antennas must meet the requirements of multi-band or wideband to sufficiently cover the possible operating bands. However, the difficulty of antenna design increases when the number of operating frequency bands increases. In addition, for miniaturizing the wireless communication system, the antenna must also be small enough to be placed inside the system. However, in order to transmit and receive more information large bandwidths are required, and bandwidth enhancement is currently a popular research area. In the recent years the development in communication systems requires the development of low cost, minimal weight, low profile antennas that are capable of maintaining high performance over a wide spectrum of frequencies. This technological trend focuses much effort into the design of a microstrip patch antenna. As is the case in conventional wireless communication systems, an antenna also plays a very crucial role in WB systems. However, there are more challenges in designing a WB antenna than a narrow band one. This dissertation focuses on WB antenna design. Studies have been undertaken covering the areas of WB fundamentals and antenna theory. Extensive investigations were also carried out on different types of WB antennas. v The antenna discussed in this dissertation is a simple microstrip circular patch antenna which uses a substrate material of FR4 of thickness of 1.59 mm. A partial ground plane is used to get wide impedance bandwidth which results in WB with acceptable return loss and bandwidth over most of the WB frequency band. An unequal E-shaped slot cut out from the radiating patch and a circular arc slot cut out from the ground plane. All the simulations have been carried out using ANSOFT High Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS).